Week 4 Apeldoorn

This was a great week! We were all over the place and yet were able to see some miracles in our area. Sorry for the wait mom, we took a nice pause from emailing play some ping pong. This country and these people here are absolutely amazing! I love the dutch people.But here are some of the highlights of this last week:

Speaking of Dutch people, Apeldoorn is very very dutch. Which is awesome and hard at the same time. This city I have spoken the least amount of English and that has been amazing. My dutch is reaping the rewards of that haha. It's been really fun to talk to a lot of the people here about religion. We found out this week from our stake mission leader there are a couple of trigger words for dutch people. For example: Geloof (faith), Kerk , Gehoorzaam (obedient), God and a couple of others. You know I have always kind of thought that the dutch people just weren't very religious because that's what you would here. But it turns out there are just certain words that trigger emotions linked to the past 500 years of Hollands history of being forced to do things. So this week we were able to change our wording a little bit and see some amazing contacts and miracles come from it. For example instead of using the the word God, we would talk about a loving Heavenly Father and how He doesn't force us to be obedient instead he gives us guidelines (The word 'commandments' is also a trigger word) to help us live a happy life. It was amazing what an impact a couple of small changes had. We were able to give out 3 Books of Mormon the day we first tried and even got let in and taught a restoration lesson. It was quite a big eye opener to me.

We had a great Zone Conference down in Rotterdam as well. It was great seeing all of the mission friends again. The conference was really good. The theme was about working with the Spirit and why that is so important and necessary. I was able to take a lot from it.

I was able to have a great exchange with Elder Le Duc and teach a great lesson with a man named Hans. Probably one of the most interesting lessons I have taught. Usually people have problems with everything but the Fall over here. But we found out that this mans entire life is built upon the fact that Christs Gospel was never lost. But we were able to teach with the spirit and he was at least willing to pray about our message. So that was a positive way to end.

This weekend we also had our Stake Conference. Another uplifting and spiritual filled couple of days. They hit the area plan really hard. Inviting friends to church, becoming spiritually self reliant and understanding the Sabbath and the sacrament. We were able to have a nice little missionary choir Elder Hosea and I got put in charge of. It turned out great!

We had an absolutely amazing lesson with Dennis this week. We are literally watching a miracle happen right before our eyes. After not seeing the missionaries for ten years we showed up a couple of weeks ago and the progress being made from then until know is incredible! He is reading in the Book of Mormon and CHOOSING to turn his life around. He understands agency so well and is make such a conscious effort to turn his life around because the light bulb came on. We honestly don't even have to do anything he is choosing to make the progress himself. It's amazing!

I absolutely love my mission! Without fail we see miracles every single week as we get to go and tell the world of a loving Savior and a loving Heavenly Father. I know without a doubt this work is God's work, this is His church!

Thank you all for the love and the support. It truly does mean a lot and it's much appreciated! I hope you all have an incredible week!

Love,
Elder Parr
#Return.With.Honor

People put mini libraries in their front yards. You put a book in you can take a book.

 

Week 3 Apeldorn "What a week :) "

Hello Hello,

This week has been such a blurr I don't even know where to begin. But I also don't have a ton of time to email so this one will be relatively short. Here are some highlights from the past week.

The temple! Last Saturday I got to go to the Temple with some of my great friends. That was such an amazing experience for us all. The Temple is just incredible. You can't leave that place without being spiritually uplifted in one way or another. It truly is the house of the Lord. I got to see Harry there and a couple other member from the Eindhoven ward as well so that was great!

So we were doing a look up a 8:45 one night and we knock on the door and she wasn't home. We headed back to the car hopped in and were going to head back to the apartment. Then we though we'd look through a stack of area book papers that I felt I needed to put in the car the night previous. There was one other person on that same street. We decided to go give it a shot. Get to his door and its now 8:55, knock and he opens right up. He continues to tell us that he is having a bible study class with 5 other people and we were welcome to go in and join them. Everything in our head was saying no. It's to late or they are just going to bash on us anyways. But our hearts said yes. So we walked in. We thought we were just going to join in on there studies. But no, they begin to ask, who are you? what do you believe in? We began to teach the restoration on the church of Jesus Christ. They were studying the parable of the lost sheep and one asked this question, So in your guy's mind are we lost sheep even though we believe in God. We didn't want to offend everyone so we started to beat around the bush then the spirit just hit us. We testified that The Church of Jesus Christ was the only true church on earth. The spirit got so strong and I know they felt it. It was like we walked into a church service and told them they were wrong but in a loving way.But the outcome was amazing, a bunch of them asked for Book of Mormons and Restoration pamphlets. A huge testimony builder to me of standing up for what you believe in even if you have to stand alone. The church is true it's that simple.

I am loving my mission and all the amazing lessons that it has taught me. I know that this is where I need to be. I love you all and am thankful for your love and support! Have a great week.

Love,
Elder Parr
#Return.With.Honor

The Temple with two of my Best Friends :)

Week 2 Apeldoorn

Hey hey!

Wow this week has just completely disappeared. I mean I guess I am emailing a couple of days earlier so I have an excuse to say that it really did feel like yesterday I was sitting behind a computer screen. But this past week has been a great one!

The weather over here has been so nice! I mean there were a couple of days that we got rained on pretty good. But I was thinking about it and this winter has been SO nice. Maybe two or three weeks have been cold max. Nice right?

I have really enjoyed serving in Apeldoorn as to this point. There are some awesome members out here and some cool people. Still trying to get used to it. I mean after being in Eindhoven for 6 months it's been a while since I have learned a new city. But it's coming along really good.

Tuesday Elder Hosea and I were on a role! We were able to go and give out a solid 3 Books of Mormon. It was awesome we walk out of district meeting in Deventer and stopped someone as we were heading back to the station ended up talking for a good 15 minutes and gave him a Book of Mormon. Just a testimony builder to me of talking to everyone even if they aren't in your city and you won't be the one teaching them. Everyone deserves and needs to hear the Gospel!

The members here are so good at coming on Joint Teach here. Every lesson we had we were able to get some members to come with us. They are such a big help. My testimony was definitely strengthened this past week of the power of bringing members on joint teach. So to all you back home if the missionaries ever ask, be the first one to volunteer.

So the Bishop in this ward could honestly be Burke Rigbys twin. Every time I see him I have to take a second look. It was pretty funny the first time I saw him. But wow he is a solid bishop! One who is going to be fun to work with I can already tell. I can't even explain how big of a difference that makes in missionary work.

Yesterday we had MLC and we were up at the mission home then stayed and worked in the area so we could go to the temple later today. I am so excited to go back to the Temple. It has been to long. There truly is no better place on earth then the House of the Lord. What a privilege we have as members to enjoy all the blessings from the Temple.

Thank you for all of the love and support! I hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,
Elder Parr
#Return.With.Honor

Week 1 "Apeldoorn"

Hello hello,

Sorry this is going to be the shortest email in the world. I have very little time today. But I made it safe and sound up to Apeldoorn with Elder Hosea and am absolutely loving it. This place is amazing, it is so different then Eindhoven but it's going to be great! The ward here is super cool and has a lot of younger people so I am super excited to work with them. I will share one cool story with you.

So I believe it was Friday Elder Hosea and I were out knocking doors for a good 2 hours and were just getting destroyed. Had like 5 good talks. Well we looked at the clock and it was time to head to a dinner appointment so we started making our way back to the car. There was one person on the sidewalk in our path. After2 hours of nothing neither of us were really in the mood to talk to him but we stopped him. And wow I am so glad that we did. He ended up being super interested in what we had to share with him. Gave us all of is information and said we could come by and teach him and his family. How cool is that?! We were so pumped I can't even tell ya.

But this week was a good one. FLEW by though, wow. I am excited for all of the great things that Apeldoorn has in store. The church Is true! I hope you all have an amazing week! Loves!!

Love,
Elder Parr
#Return.With.Honor